[closed post -- john 20:25]
Feb. 29th, 2024 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onthewillowsthereFor the last few weeks, Galahad and Laertes have met regularly for baking. Most of the time Laertes only helps a little, which is no trouble to Galahad -- he works just as well on his own. Sometimes Laertes brings a book and reads in silence; sometimes he talks, about his and Sagramore's new puppy and how perfect she is, the most clever and beautiful creature in all the world, or about what he's learning, about alchemy (Galahad likes the differences in the way Claudius and Laertes talk about alchemy and what it's like to make distillations and tinctures) or about the cosmos and its order.
Galahad thinks idly how much he'd like to bring the record player into the kitchen for them, for the times they don't talk. After spending so much of his life without music, every new song is like a new taste, and he can lose hours to them, watching the spin of the records or sketching and listening.
He and Claudius have made a list together. When his mind isn't otherwise occupied he thinks of it, straying back to it like a snatch of song that keeps repeating -- of all the things he doesn't dare but wants to, the ways he could touch Claudius and be touched: all the fruit-sweet temptations that he's still too afraid to take from his beloved serpent, subtle and beguiling.
The list is both a comfort and a source of anxiety. In many ways he's glad of it; he likes knowing what Claudius likes. He likes having some frame for his imagination, he likes the orderly arrangement of things, he likes having time to roll all the possibilities around inside his mind like grains of sand turning to pearls. It's simpler to know what is and isn't permitted between them, or would be permitted if he could-- and there's the anxiety.
He's taking too long, he keeps thinking. Claudius loves sex; it's how he gets to know people. It's a language for him. And Galahad is mute, withholding still. All the things they could be learning in each other are closed to him, because he doesn't know to unlock the door of himself and let Claudius put his hand to the latch, dripping with myrrh or no.
He should trust Claudius -- he knows that. Claudius has accepted his ring, accepted his betrothal. And yet: Galahad is so inexperienced. He knows so much less of the world, so much less about people, so much less about everything but God (and he can't imagine Claudius is really enchanted by the idea of hearing Galahad speak on the heresy of adoptionism and the theologies of Peter Abélard). Sometimes in the mornings when he's caught between Matins and Prime and can't get out of bed, he thinks about how much better suited Laertes and Sagramore, with their warmth and brightness and spontaneity, are to keeping Claudius from loneliness and melancholy. Grantaire is so sweet and sad; Claudius says so all the time. Claudius has been open about his love for all three of them, and often Galahad can reason that of all the men Claudius loves it's Galahad he's chosen to live with. But sometimes it's hard; sometimes he feels too quiet, too inexpressive, too chaste. He's taking too long. He's too slow.
Usually he's attentive when he's baking with Laertes. He listens well -- he's good at listening. Today he can't stop thinking about the list and his slowness.
Galahad is folding browned butter into the madeleine batter when he realizes Laertes has asked him a question that he's missed entirely. He puts the saucepan down.
"What did you say?"
Galahad thinks idly how much he'd like to bring the record player into the kitchen for them, for the times they don't talk. After spending so much of his life without music, every new song is like a new taste, and he can lose hours to them, watching the spin of the records or sketching and listening.
He and Claudius have made a list together. When his mind isn't otherwise occupied he thinks of it, straying back to it like a snatch of song that keeps repeating -- of all the things he doesn't dare but wants to, the ways he could touch Claudius and be touched: all the fruit-sweet temptations that he's still too afraid to take from his beloved serpent, subtle and beguiling.
The list is both a comfort and a source of anxiety. In many ways he's glad of it; he likes knowing what Claudius likes. He likes having some frame for his imagination, he likes the orderly arrangement of things, he likes having time to roll all the possibilities around inside his mind like grains of sand turning to pearls. It's simpler to know what is and isn't permitted between them, or would be permitted if he could-- and there's the anxiety.
He's taking too long, he keeps thinking. Claudius loves sex; it's how he gets to know people. It's a language for him. And Galahad is mute, withholding still. All the things they could be learning in each other are closed to him, because he doesn't know to unlock the door of himself and let Claudius put his hand to the latch, dripping with myrrh or no.
He should trust Claudius -- he knows that. Claudius has accepted his ring, accepted his betrothal. And yet: Galahad is so inexperienced. He knows so much less of the world, so much less about people, so much less about everything but God (and he can't imagine Claudius is really enchanted by the idea of hearing Galahad speak on the heresy of adoptionism and the theologies of Peter Abélard). Sometimes in the mornings when he's caught between Matins and Prime and can't get out of bed, he thinks about how much better suited Laertes and Sagramore, with their warmth and brightness and spontaneity, are to keeping Claudius from loneliness and melancholy. Grantaire is so sweet and sad; Claudius says so all the time. Claudius has been open about his love for all three of them, and often Galahad can reason that of all the men Claudius loves it's Galahad he's chosen to live with. But sometimes it's hard; sometimes he feels too quiet, too inexpressive, too chaste. He's taking too long. He's too slow.
Usually he's attentive when he's baking with Laertes. He listens well -- he's good at listening. Today he can't stop thinking about the list and his slowness.
Galahad is folding browned butter into the madeleine batter when he realizes Laertes has asked him a question that he's missed entirely. He puts the saucepan down.
"What did you say?"
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Date: 2024-03-02 03:12 am (UTC)Perhaps this gesture means that it's become less fraught. Perhaps it means that Galahad trusts their understanding now.
Laertes smiles, and lets him go again. "My thanks. Thou art a good friend to me."
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Date: 2024-03-02 03:19 am (UTC)